Lemanada.

This past week has been….

Health week.

Do.

You guys have this? Do you do this? I hate doctor's appointments of any all kinds. I just can't stand them. I try to schedule as many as possible back to back in the same week to just knock them all out. That was this past week for me. I had a pap smear, a mammogram, an ultrasound. Don't be scared. They're regular checkups for me. I believe most women start getting mammograms when they're 40.

I started when I was.

25 because my mom was diagnosed with stage four cancer when she was 36 or 37 years old. And so that's always what's on my order form. Every time I get a mammogram, right there written on the order form, it's like, mammogram plus ultrasound, bilateral. And then where it says, Reason, the doctor writes. Well, she writes two things. The first thing she writes is, Mother diagnosed with stage four cancer at 36. The second thing she writes is, Dense breasts.

Which.

I don't know if that's a compliment, but it sure as hell doesn't sound like one. Like, dense breasts? Can't she describe it a little bit differently? I don't like it. Every time I see that on the form, I'm embarrassed to hand in the form. I'm like, I'm here for the mammogram for my dense breasts. It's a... Sounds gross. I had those and then I also had genetic testing. It was easy enough. It was in just like a boring looking, regular, seeming doctor's office. But it is weird sometimes because I walk in and everybody tries to look busy, but they're looking at me because they recognize me. It didn't happen with the mammogram, it happened with the ultrasound, which is where they do the jelly and all that and... So my boob was just.

Flopped out.

Facing this woman. She's like, Yeah, so my.

Daughter got your book, 25.

She gave it to me and I thought, Oh, is she trying to tell me something?

And she tried to... And I thought, Oh, no, she wouldn't. I'm a good mom. Yeah, I.

Think I'm a good mom.

So I went ahead and read it.

Wow.

You've been through some shit, girl.

She's talking to me like this with my breasts just in her fucking face. And it was.

Very funny.

But also it's.

Like, yeah, I know I put all that stuff in a book and I know people can read a lot of stuff, all these intimate details about my life. But also I didn't expect the person giving me an ultrasound to necessarily have read it. You don't take into account that perhaps.

The ultrasound technician.

Wielding the medical tool around your breast repeatedly, might have read your book.

Anyway, those various appointments were all just the appetizer courses. It was all leading up to the main event, the main dish, which was an appointment about egg freezing, about getting my eggs frozen. I went to this appointment and I feel like a child. I'm a small woman. I've got some curves, I've got some tits, I've got some ass, but I'm also small and I definitely look younger than my age. But forget about that. I just feel like a child. And something about walking into an egg freezing appointment just made me feel I've never felt more seven in my life. Absolutely including when I was actually seven. When I was seven, I felt like I was 45. I don't know why. What happened here that I was 45 when I was seven and now I'm seven when I'm 31. Life is weird. Aging is odd. I go to this appointment and the doctor is so kind. She is thorough. Do you ever have this? I feel like every doctor I go in, they're like stepping backwards from the room before they've even entered. They can't fucking get out of there quick enough. They say words that don't make any sense.

But this doctor was not that way. She was very thorough, very thoughtful, continuously asked if I had follow-up questions and seemed like she actually cared. She wasn't like, Do you have any follow-up questions? And then on to the next part of her spiel, she was like actually waiting for a response and seemed genuinely curious and genuinely compassionate. But it was the fucking scariest hour, like it was probably over an hour that she talked to me. I would say over an hour. It was one of the scariest doctor health experiences of my life and just daunting, like the sheer amount of information. I honestly had not looked into it very much before I went to this appointment. I didn't fucking know. I just thought like, okay, I'm 31. I know that there's such thing as like a biological clock. I know you got less eggs as you age as a woman. So let me go just see about getting my eggs frozen.

And just to.

Be totally transparent, so you all know, I do not feel in any way, shape or form like I want kids. I cannot imagine a world in which someday I want kids. But I am also open to my mind changing. I have changed a lot as a person in my years so far, and I expect and hope to continue changing. And what I don't want to happen is for me to turn 40 and realize, Fuck, I want kids now and then I don't have enough eggs to make it happen. And I know there's alternatives, but just I just wanted to hear about the possibility and what that might look like. I was not ready for all that I heard. Oh, my God! It was a jarring slap in the face. She's like, Half of your eggs, I don't even remember. This is absolutely not going to be accurate, but you'll get the gist, like the scariness was... The scariness is properly demonstrated here. It was like, you're born with 500,000 eggs and half of those are gone by the time you're five or something like that. Was it by the time you reached puberty?

See.

It's a good thing I'm not a doctor. But so you have this many less eggs and then every year at that point on you lose that many more. And she said it's significantly different. The success rate is significantly different every six months, basically, from this point on as I age. So if I get my eggs frozen, she was like, there's no better time than now when it comes to egg freezing, except for five years ago. I'm like, oh, my God, I feel attacked. But she goes, there's no better time than now. You should do it. And whenever you've got it in your schedule to do it. Something to keep in mind is that you will have mood swings. You'll have cramps like a period. It'll be really like an amplified period. For a period, you're releasing one egg and for this you're going to be harvesting. That's so nasty. I don't want to harvest any fucking eggs. No, thank you. Whatever, it's going to be like 20 times the strength of a period. It, you guys, that was the last fucking thing I needed to hear. My periods debilitate me. My periods are so painful.

I have seen several gynecologists about this, about how to work with my periods more because I feel bedridden. I feel so moody, so, so, so moody. The cramps are excruciating. I'm rolling over. I'm moaning, I'm groaning. Heatpads help more than anything. I also take medicine on my period to help alleviate the pain. But I feel brain fog, migraines, my skin breaks out horribly. I feel like a goblin for two days of the month, every month during my period. Twenty times that? I genuinely don't know if I could fucking handle that. That sounds terrifying.

If.

You're anything like me, you have tried just about everything on your hair: masks, treatments, leave and conditioners, Mayonaise.

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That's H-A-I-R-S-T-O-R-Y. Com and code hard feelings to save 20 % today. Your hair will thank you for it. To me, taking a multivitamin is an absolute must, especially if you're unsure if you're getting all of your necessary minerals and vitamins in your diet. And look, I did not used to be a multivitamin person. Seriously, I would have a piece of broccoli once a week and feel like that's got to be my servings of vegetables for this weekright? We're good. And then I realized maybe I ought to start taking a multivitamin. Maybe there's something to that. Ritual is a clinically-backed multivitamin for women 18-plus with high quality and traceable key ingredients in clean bio-available forms. Ritual knows it's basically impossible to get all the nutrients you need from your diet 100 % of the time, so they made a multivitamin that helps you focus on what's important, filling key nutrient gaps to support foundational health. With nine key nutrients and two capsules per day, Ritual is essential for Women 18+ is one of the few women's multis that's USP verified, meaning what's on the label is what's in the formula. It's also soy-free, gluten-free, vegan-friendly, and formulated without GMOs.

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So it's a two week process and you're injecting yourself with hormones. And then there's also the aspect of actually retrieving the eggs, which she draws me, or there's a little picture and she's like, drawling on the little graphic. So she's like circling whatever my overs and she's saying, Oh, so we're just going to inject you. We're going to stick a needle up your vagina. These words, my ears are tingling as I'm saying this out loud. Oh, my God. So she starts describing this process, this procedure in-depth where they are literally putting a needle in your vagina just a regular Tuesday. And I'm feeling very dizzy. Luckily, she had handed me a water earlier. So I start chugging the water. My eyes start twitching and I'm trying to not look like a fucking weirdo while listening to this doctor, kindly relate in detail how that needle is going to just shoot up my vagina. Eventually, that portion is done. I don't pass out. I'm feeling like, okay, surely the worst is over. But she starts going into how my body is going to feel like I'm pregnant and might even look like I'm pregnant. And she goes, You would feel it because you're very, you're petite, she said.

And she's like, you would likely feel like you're very pregnant and have a lot of those symptoms and your body would really reflect that. So I left that appointment horrified. I'm hearing my body is going to look and feel like I'm pregnant. I'm going to have difficulties and emotionality, mood swings, hormonal charges, 20 times that of a regular period. And I'm going to have needles up my vagina? That sounds like fucking hell. No, thank you. And it's especially difficult to want to or feel inspired to do that when I do not feel like I want children. Also, any time I say I don't want children, I hear people say, But you'd be such a good mom, come. Yeah, it's.

Not about that.

It is not about that. Thanks so much, Darlene. I don't know, I feel like women who use that voice have got to be named Darlene. Her name's Darlene. She's got a perm and she makes a mean green bean castle. But I just feel like no part of me feels motivated to freeze my eggs when I don't think I want to be a mom. But what if someday I change my mind? And so I'm trying to decide whether or not to freeze my eggs. Honestly, now I'm just thinking about Drasik Park. Saying eggs makes me think of Drasik Park. Yeah, I don't want to fucking be a mom. I want to go watch Jeff Goldblum. I'm trying to decide whether or not to freeze my eggs or embryos or whatever the fuck, but I'm struggling because I'm trying to bet on my future self wanting a thing that my current self can't imagine wanting versus just not doing it and risking that someday I might want it and not be able to do it then. I'm trying to weigh these options here and it's quite complex, to be honest. I felt dizzy afterward and I felt I was just going on a walk and really considering it and just feeling confronted with aging and who I am now versus who I might be someday and how much I don't know about my future self.

I was just confronted with all these real, these life realities that I frankly didn't feel prepared for and still don't. So I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm glad that I got to share this, though, and I'm curious if any of you relate or struggling with whether or not to freeze your eggs or embryos.

And that's all from me.

I am going to go watch Drasik Park. There's more hard feelings with Lemonata Premium. Subscribers get exclusive access.

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You can subscribe now in Apple Podcasts.

I'm Janette McCurdy, the creator, executive producer, and a host of Hard Feelings. It's produced by Lemonata Media in coordination with Happy Rage Productions. Our production team is.

Keegan Zemma.

Ariya Brochi, and Brian Castillo. Music is by Hannahs Brown. Steve Nelson is Lemonata's Vice President of Weekly Content. Rachel Neel is La Monata's Senior Director of New Content. Executive producers are Stefani Widdles-Wax, Jessica Cordova-Kramer, and me. Listen ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership.